Popular quotes about Happiness! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
Now, when ordinary people attempt to find happiness, I am not sure whether the happiness is really happiness or not. I study what ordinary people do to find happiness, what they struggle for, rushing about apparently unable to stop.
ZhuangziThe world is so unhappy because it is ignorant of the true Self. Manโs real nature is happiness. Happiness is inborn in the true Self. Manโs search for happiness is an unconscious search for his true Self. The true Self is imperishable; therefore, when a man finds it, he finds a happiness which does not come to an end.
Ramana MaharshiShe was experiencing the same odd happiness and odd sadness as then. The sadness meant: We are at the last station. The happiness meant: We are together. The sadness was form, the happiness content. Happiness filled the space of sadness.
Milan KunderaReal happiness is not dependent on external things. The pond is fed from within. The kind of happiness that stays with you is the happiness that springs from inward thoughts and emotions. You must cultivate your mind if you wish to achieve enduring happiness.
William Lyon PhelpsIf religion commands universal charity, to love our neighbors as ourselves, to forgive and pray for all our enemies without any reserve; it is because all degrees of love are degrees of happiness, that strengthen and support the Divine life of the soul, and are as necessary to its health and happiness, as proper food is necessary to the health and happiness of the body.
William LawThose only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.
John Stuart MillTo wish for your own happiness is sometimes coupled with another's unhappiness. So then, what exactly should I pray for? Since I couldn't pray for my own happiness, I prayed to the moon in the night sky for the happiness of the one whose warm hand I held.
Chica UminoLove and happiness inextricably combined? I wanted love stories to coincide with war stories, I wanted hope for my characters, I wanted a sense of a future. So do they. So does the reader. But perhaps I shouldn't speak for everyone when I say that love and happiness are interdependent. In my own experience, happiness came with love. Specifically, my wife. That's when my own apathy and stasis ended for good.
Said SayrafiezadehWe desire truth, and find within ourselves only uncertainty. We seek happiness, and find only misery and death. We cannot but desire truth and happiness, and are incapable of certainty or happiness.
Blaise PascalThis relaxation is the space in which happiness grows, and again I repeat: for no reason at all. It is not that you are happy because of something. You are simply happy. Happiness is your nature. Unhappiness is something nurtured, you have learned it. Every credit goes to you for all your misery, but for happiness, you cannot have any credit. It is natural. You were born happy. You were happy in your mother's womb.
RajneeshHappiness is the result of inner maturity. It depends on us alone, and requires patient work, carried out from day to day. Happiness must be built, and this requires time and effort. In the long term, happiness and unhappiness are therefore a way of being, or a life skill.
Matthieu RicardWe begin from the recognition that all beings cherish happiness and do not want suffering. It then becomes both morally wrong and pragmatically unwise to pursue only one's own happiness oblivious to the feelings and aspirations of all others who surround us as members of the same human family. The wiser course is to think of others when pursuing our own happiness.
Dalai LamaDon't seek happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness. Happiness is ever elusive, but freedom from unhappiness is attainable now, by facing what is rather than making up stories about it.
Eckhart TolleOne dangerous definition of happiness is to think of happiness as kind of a warm, joyful feeling in your heart that you have to pursue and grab and hold onto for fear that it'll go away. A better way to think about happiness that actually is something that I think you can reach towards is, it's living in accord with your values and in a way that is more open and accepting of your history as it echoes into the present, that's more self-affirming, self-validating and values-based. The Greeks had a word for it; they called it eudaimonia. And it is something that will empower human lives.
Steven C. HayesIn the height of thy prosperity expect adversity, but fear it not. If it come not, thou art the more sweetly possessed of the happiness thou hast, and the more strongly confirmed. If it come, thou art the more gently dispossessed of the happiness thou hadst, and the more firmly prepared.
Francis QuarlesMeditation is the direct means of enjoying the greatest happiness and is the only means to quench the thirst for happiness on earth.
Maharishi Mahesh YogiEverything is unfolding based on causes and conditions. Our happiness or suffering is dependent on how we relate to the present moment. If we cling now, we suffer later. If we let go and respond with compassion or friendliness, we create happiness and well-being for the future.
Noah LevineIt is always worth itemising happiness, there is so much of the other thing in a life, you had better put down the markers for happiness while you can.
Sebastian BarryThe Constitution of America only guarantees pursuit of happiness-you have to catch up with it yourself. Fortunately, happiness is something that depends not on position but on disposition, and life is what you make it.
Gill Robb WilsonAs we got more interested in time management and productivity, we lost the individual, and with that individual loss, we lost happiness as well. So I think the world has actually been malnourished as we've focused so much on productivity and ignored happiness and meaning to our own detriment.
Shawn AchorThere are only two roads that lead to something like human happiness. They are marked by the words . . . love and achievement. . . . Inorder to be happy oneself it is necessary to make at least one other person happy. . . . The secret of human happiness is not inself-seeking but in self-forgetting.
Theodor ReikHappiness lies in virtuous activity, and perfect happiness lies in the best activity, which is contemplative
AristotleIf, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.
Andy RooneyThere is no lasting happiness outside the prescribed cycle of painful exhaustion and pleasurable regeneration, and whatever throws this cycle out of balance โ poverty and misery where exhaustion is followed by wretchedness instead of regeneration, or great riches and an entirely effortless life where boredom takes the place of exhaustion and where the mills of necessity, of consumption and digestion, grind an impotent human body mercilessly and barrenly to death โ ruins the elemental happiness that comes from being alive.
Hannah ArendtThose two, in paradise, were given a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative.
Yevgeny ZamyatinIn the Light of interbeing, peace and happiness in your daily life means peace and happiness in the world.
Nhat HanhIs this what you have in mind,' I asked the Dalai Lama, 'when you say in teachings that the buddhas and bodhisattvas of the world are the most selfish beings of all, that by cultivating altruism they actually achieve ultimate happiness for themselves?' Yes. That's wise selfish,' he replied. 'Helping others not means we do this at our own expense. Not like this. Buddhas and bodhisattvas, these people very wise. All their lives they only want one thing: to achieve ultimate happiness. How to do this? By cultivating compassion, by cultivating altruism.
Dalai LamaIf it (the good circumstances) changes will you be able to keep onto your happiness just as much? Because if not then your happiness is really built on sand.
Goswami KriyanandaThere are no problems, there is only confusion. When confusion passes away, there is only happiness. Happiness is not complicated at all.
Frederick LenzStrength is happiness. Strength is itself victory. In weakness and cowardice there is no happiness
Daisaku IkedaThe cult of happiness turns into a huge concern which to my opinion is exactly contrary to what happiness should be: a paradise of enchantment.
Pascal BrucknerHappiness does not come from external things as we're really taught as children. It doesn't come from Santa Claus. Happiness is from within your mind. Just realizing that will change your whole life.
Frederick LenzOur happiness depends on the habit of mind we cultivate. So practice happy thinking every day. Cultivate the merry heart, develop the happiness habit, and life will become a continual feast." ~
Norman Vincent PealeThere is no one way to Happiness. Happiness is the way! It's inside your head FIRST and everyplace else second
Jeffrey GitomerMeditation is the short path to happiness. Meditation takes you beyond the desire-aversion operating system that offers very limited happiness and a great deal of frustration.
Frederick LenzHappiness is not synonymous with pleasure. It is, instead, a deeper emotion that originates from within. . . . Happiness results from a sense of mental and moral contentment with who we are, what we value, and how we invest our time and resources for purposes beyond ourselves.
David ShiPeace comes from within. Do not seek it without. It can be argued that peace and happiness comes from the subjective internalised perspective of realizing things could be worse and being grateful they aren't. The alternative view that peace and happiness comes from the objective external perspective of having more and better things than at present, while important for growth, can be a never-ending source of jealousy, dissatisfaction and disappointment. A balance of the two, where people are grateful for what they have while striving for more seems the best blended perspective.
Gautama BuddhaThe happiness which is lacking makes one think even the happiness one has unbearable.
Philibert Joseph RouxGod has created all things for good; all things for their greatest good; everything for its own good. What is the good of one is not the good of another; what makes one man happy would make another unhappy. God has determined, unless I interfere with His plan, that I should reach that which will be my greatest happiness. He looks on me individually, He calls me by my name, He knows what I can do, what I can best be, what is my greatest happiness, and He means to give it me.
John Henry NewmanMeditation puts into question more or less everything you tend to do in your search for happiness. But if you lose sight of this, it can become just another strategy for seeking happiness - a more refined version of the problem you already have.
Sam HarrisRiches can all be lost, but that happiness in your own heart can only be veiled, and it will bring you happiness again, as long as you live.
Anne FrankTo be happy you have to fulfill your nature. That's what Aristotle taught so many centuries ago, that the road to happiness isn't to go drink more or consume more. The road to happiness is to fully develop your abilities, and then apply them to do good.
Charles KochIt is true that it feels very differently to enjoy a good meal, taking part in an interesting conversation, or to think of how successful your children are. Suppose we do all these things at a particular time. How happy are we at the time? We do not need to calculate the value of each such feelings on any singular scale to answer this question. We need not see our happiness at the time as a mathematical function of these items. It is rather that all these experiences, together with many other factors, causally puts us at the time at a certain level of happiness, i.e. in a certain mood.
Torbjorn TannsjoOne should never direct people towards happiness, because happiness too is an idol of the market-place. One should direct them towards mutual affection. A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy too, but only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn